This invention relates in general to personnel protection devices and in particular to a new and useful cold protection suit which is usable with a respirator.
In places with a cold ambience and endangered by water bursts, such as diving chambers and submarines, failures in breathing gas supply as well as undercooling may occur upon an accident. Situations of this kind must be encountered in a simple and effective way.
A prior art protective breathing apparatus is intended for ambiences endangered by undercooling. The apparatus comprises a cartridge by which CO.sub.2 from the respirator gas is fixed and O.sub.2 is released and which is operated in reciprocation. The cartridge is connected through an accordion tube and a mouthpiece to the user. A heat accumulator is provided between the cartridge and the ambient air. This heat accumulator stores the heat contained in the exhaled air and produced in the cartridge and gives it off to the user during the next inhalation. Thus, in the way of the respiratory tract, the user's body is prevented from becoming undercooled and the body temperature is sustained, however, the body surface is not directly heated (German patent application No. 31 50 412.4).
In a prior art dry diving suit for great depths, the suit has inner and outer gastight walls which enclose a space filled with foam material. The walls are thus connected to each other through a layer of foam material. The foam material is a plastic with communicating cells, so that, to some extent, passages are formed. The passages are connected through an inlet valve in the outer wall to a compressed-gas source, such as to the breathing gas tank of the breathing apparatus. The gas penetrating therein prevents the material of the suit from being compressed and thus maintains the thermal insulation (German As No. 12 78 869).
The prior art diving suit may reduce thermal losses, but cannot supply more heat to the user's body.